Free Client Privilege by William G. Tapply Page A

hospital. The scuttlebutt is that he’s not gonna make it. So Burl goes to visit him. ‘Nice you could come visit me,’ wheezes the old guy from his bed. ‘Sorry to hear about your sickness,’ says Burl. ‘Ain’t gonna make it, they tell me,’ says the poacher. ‘Sure gonna miss the woods.’ Burl hitches his chair closer to the bed. ‘You’ve got to tell me something,’ he says. ‘Those times when I was hiding out there in the bushes waiting for you. How in hell did you know I was there?’ The old geezer turns his head and grins. ‘I didn’t know you was there, son. Every mornin’ for thirty years I went out on my porch and yelled the same damn thing.’”
    I lit a cigarette and didn’t say anything.
    “You still there, Brady?”
    “I’m here, Charlie.”
    “You get my point?”
    “You’re saying these cops’re like that old poacher. They go out on their porch every morning, so to speak, and yell accusations, and sooner or later someone’s going to be hiding in the bushes, thinking they’ve been found out. You’re saying I should ignore what they say to me. Just stay hunkered in the bushes.”
    “You got it, pal.”
    “Difference is, I’m not guilty of anything.”
    “That doesn’t make it different at all,” said Charlie.
    “Okay. Thanks for the advice.”
    “That’s why you called, wasn’t it? For advice?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, remember about that old poacher, then.”
    “Thanks, Charlie. Anything else I should be thinking about?”
    “Sure. Though I hesitate to mention it to you.”
    “What is it?”
    “Well,” he said. “If I know cops, they think they’ve got themselves a hot one.”
    “Me.”
    “Right. And while they’re chasing you around, the real bad guy’s feeling better and better about things. Because nobody’s chasing him around.”
    “And somebody ought to be chasing him around,” I said. “Like, for example, me.”
    “Jesus, Brady. I didn’t say that.”
    “Who else?”
    Charlie had no answer for me.
    After I hung up with Charlie I tried Detective Horowitz’s number at State Police headquarters at 1010 Commonwealth Avenue, not really expecting him to be in. But he was. I gave my name to his secretary, and a minute later he came on the line.
    “Horowitz,” he mumbled.
    “You got a mouthful of Bazooka?” I said.
    I heard a bubble pop. “Nasty habit,” he said.
    “You should try cigarettes.”
    “Coyne,” he said, “I ain’t got time for a bunch of shit. What do you want?”
    “What do you know about the Churchill killing?”
    He popped a bubble. “I know what there is to know. Just for one thing, that you seem to have stepped into some moderately deep shit.”
    “I hope you told your friends about me.”
    He snorted through his nose. “Would you really want me to do that?”
    “Come on, Horowitz.”
    “You’ve been in plenty of weird scrapes, Coyne. Christ, you killed a guy with your gun a few years back.”
    “You know about that. You investigated that one.”
    “Sure. You were defending the virtue of a woman. Still, you can see how it looks.”
    “What’ve they got on me?”
    “Look, Coyne. You are pushing what is already a tenuous friendship to its limits. You follow me?”
    “Spell it out.”
    “Hell, you’re a witness in a homicide.”
    “That’s it?”
    “Okay,” he said. “You’re a possible suspect. How’s that?”
    “That’s not very good.”
    “They haven’t got anything more than circumstance right now. They come up with much more…” He paused. “Will they?”
    “Will they what?”
    “Come up with something else?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Well, I didn’t really think so. Still…”
    “Look,” I said. “What the hell is going on?”
    He sighed. “I guess I won’t be screwing anything up if I tell you what I’ve heard. The papers got most of it anyway. You got the right to know.”
    “Thanks.”
    “This’ll cost you something fancy at the Ritz when it’s all over.”
    “Fine. Gladly.